PBS Wisconsin Original production.
>> Wisconsin responds with hope and caution that the
war with Iran could have an end in sight, and a
projected deficit for Milwaukee County forecasts
the choppy waters ahead for the economy.
[MUSIC] Tonight on "Here& Now",
Wisconsin senators weigh in on Trump's peace deal and
local Iranians share their views. Analysis of the
projected economic shortfall in Milwaukee. We
hear from the candidates running in the Democratic
primary for governor at their state convention. And
land appropriated hundreds of years ago transitions
back into the hands of the Ho-Chunk.
It's "Here& Now" for June 19th.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus
Fund for journalism. [MUSIC]
Wisconsin. >> The signed understanding
between the U.S. and Iran has raised as many
questions as it has provided answers. But since
the war began more than 100 days ago, it's the closest
to a mutual agreement the public has seen, with fine
details of negotiations still unknown. Wisconsin
Senators Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin reacted with
support and skepticism. >> As no matter how many
votes we had to try and limit the president's power
here, the American people have a say in this. And I
would say the American people, by and large,
overwhelmingly the majority did not want President
Trump to introduce the type of ground troops to
completely defeat the Revolutionary Guard and the
brutal dictators of Iran. So here we are again. I
don't know what's in the memorandum of understanding.
We can always go back in. The minute they make a move
toward the nuclear sites, we can bomb them again. We
can try and work with them. >> He needs to show the
American people what is in this agreement, what our
plan is to reach a real long term peace deal and
explain how any of us are better off now compared to
three and a half months ago. Until a long term peace
agreement is signed and sealed, and any nuclear
agreement is delivered to Congress, I'm going to
continue to do my job and force the Senate to vote to
stop this war. >> At the start of the war
in Iran, we checked in with two Iranians who have lived
and worked in Wisconsin for years but maintain close
ties with their country. The shock and awe of those
early days was, of course, distressing and terrifying.
This week we checked back in with them to see what
they think of the end of hostilities. With a signed
agreement between the U.S. and Iran. They both said
they don't trust the Iranian regime to uphold
agreements, and it must now be up to the civilian
population in Iran to take back their country, no
matter the odds. Here are Ali Soltani and Zara Fakhri
speaking about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps
and the regime. In the face of the agreement with the
U.S. >> Iranians are in constant
war while the IRGC is in power and the IRGC has
repeatedly failed in any agreement with any country,
with any group or community. So that's why for Iranians,
there is no longer hope or believing in any agreements
that is done by these people. We do not trust
them. We do not believe in them. And we are not seeing
any progress because for 47 years they have shown
themselves. So we also do not believe that it's a
real agreement. >> What we have to realize
is that this cessation of hostilities, peace talks,
whatever you want to call it, it's only possible with
freedom for the Iranian people. The nature of this
regime has not changed. Whether what they're doing
is the result of basically military pressure. So they
welcome war. They want war, they want crisis. They want
these kind of things to suppress the internal
aspirations of the Iranian people. So they're there
because they're forced to. The real fight is actually
between the Iranian people and this regime within the
last four days, since Saturday until Tuesday,
they have executed 61 people, 61 prisoners. That
is one every three hours. So they're very scared of
the people and their uprising and their
organized resistance. >> It was a roller coaster
for all of us because it's not acceptable to see your
country being bombed or being under UN strikes. But
at the same time, the wildest thing that I've
heard from many Iranians is that we are even okay with
that. If the day after bombing or strikes, we see
free Iran and there is no IRGC and they toppled. So
that was the only thing that we were looking for.
Although we were all full of fear, we were all
worried about our family members, our relatives.
>> You cannot overthrow a regime with bombing, okay?
From air, it's impossible, especially a regime that's
ideologically driven. You need the people inside Iran,
the organized opposition that we have, they know
every way there is. They know the people inside Iran.
They know who is responsible.
>> Right now. I think after all of the things and
complications that has happened, they got even
more confident because they faced the war with Israel
and United States. I cannot call any other country who
is more powerful in military services or powers
in this kind of matter. But now they say that we won't
over Israel, we won't over United States. So I think
the worst thing that I could see after the war was
seeing them getting more confident. That's the worst
thing that I could see. >> You know, the last four
uprisings in Iran, one in I think was 2019 was for the
gas prices that went up in 2018. I think it was price
of chicken that went up in 2026. The last one that we
saw it was in started from Bazaar because of the price
of the dollar just increased a lot. So this
regime is incapable of solving the Iranian
people's problems. So as long as the structure is
corrupt and you cannot address the basic needs of
the Iranian people, the these uprisings will happen.
It's a matter of time. >> We are full of hope.
>> It has been for 47 years. I mean, not the generation
at the time that they were protesting or they were
fighting against IRGC the second generation of that.
And I know the third generation are right now
joining us everywhere, even in social media, TikTok and
Instagram. So I don't see that anyone has lost their
hope. We we are full of hope because we we read the
history. There is no dictatorship that they can
last long. >> The people of Iran need
to rise up themselves and. And they do have organized
resistance. They need to basically get the
international community's recognition. That's what we
need. We don't need any help money. We don't need
any soldiers or boots on the ground from foreign
powers. We need their recognition and their help
to basically help the Iranian people.
>> The first priority for all Iranians right now is
to be the voice of Iranian people inside Iran, and
also showing the whole world that what is real
Iranians and how we are separating ourselves from
IRGC. >> The economic engine of
the state is looking at a whopping county government
budget shortfall. Milwaukee County leaders project a
$50 million deficit next year, and a nearly $170
million shortfall in five years. That's if measures
to cut costs aren't taken. What is happening? We turn
to Jason Stein, president of the Wisconsin Policy
Forum, and thanks for being here.
>> My pleasure. Thank you. >> So what is happening? I
thought that the shared rev deal and new county sales
tax was supposed to make things okay.
>> Right. So you're referring to a 2023 law
that provided both new sales tax authority to the
county, as well as additional state aid. And
those were helpful. I mean, the sales tax revenue is
going to be nearly $90 million projected for 2027.
So without that money, that that $50 million shortfall
is even larger. But at the same time, that deal also
imposed new costs on the county to, you know, shift
to the state pension system, which is a good long term
fix but is challenging in the short term. And then
additional law enforcement costs and other costs. So
it was very helpful, but it didn't change the fact that
the county has a structural imbalance between how fast
its revenues are growing and how fast its expenses
are growing. And you see that showing up in this
this budget shortfall. >> So I understand that 75%
of the county's budget is mandated state services,
some of which you just spoke to, including court
operation and highway patrols. So what goes the
quality of life? Things like parks and pools.
>> Absolutely. And, you know, there are a number of
also discretionary challenges that the county
has. The county also has its transit program, which
is facing a big challenge in 2027 because it's
finally exhausted. The federal pandemic aid, which
stuck around a little bit longer for transit
operations than other parts of government. So that's a
challenge. It has a county courthouse that it needs to
replace. That's nearly a half $1 billion project.
And then you talk about its parks, something like that
amount in deferred maintenance to its parks
system. So it has a lot of generational challenges
that are still pressing it pretty strongly.
>> So how does the county stave off these deficits?
>> I mean, I think when you have a challenge of this
size, you're going to have to look on the cost side
and the revenue side. So, I mean, the challenge on the
cost side is that the county has really had 20
years now of making, you know, cuts and trims and
other things. But, you know, they're going to have to
look in transit. They're going to have to look
across their, their system to try and find some
savings. And then at the same time, they're probably
going to have to find revenues, whether that's
it's from increasing their vehicle registration fee,
whatever it happens to be that they can do because
there aren't a lot of levers they can pull.
>> Should or could the state do more?
>> I mean, the state in the current budget, it should
be said, did a lot for the county in that the state
put forward funds for patrolling the highways in
Milwaukee County. So that was a big financial help.
Governor Evers, with one of his partial vetoes, also
lowered the cost of. To counties of housing
juvenile offenders in a state prison for youth,
which. That helped Milwaukee County more than
any other county. So there was assistance there. But
you'll you'll you'll certainly hear elected
officials from the county going to the state again
over the next year. >> How vexing is this
perennial problem, especially for the county
executive now running for governor?
>> I mean, it's every county executive faces this.
I mean, another county executive who became
governor, Scott Walker, you know, faced the same
shortfalls in some of these capital challenges have
built up over a period of time. That goes back to the
2000, when Walker was Milwaukee County executive.
So it's certainly a challenge. I think one of
the things that I'm sure the county executive will
will ask for, you know, elected officials to ask
for is freedom from the state limits on county
property taxes. So more flexibility to raise local
revenues to deal with these problems. But of course,
the state has been reluctant to give that
flexibility. >> So I trust that
Milwaukee County is not the only county that is facing
these kinds of budget crunches.
>> No, that's certainly the case. I think it is worth
noting, though, that Milwaukee County,
particularly in the city of Milwaukee, has some of the
poorest residents. So any county or any city that has
a transit system, for example, is facing that
same problem with the loss of federal revenue,
ridership and ridership revenue being down and the
cost being up. But in Milwaukee County, it has a
particular pinch and resonance because you
really have people that are relying on that transit
system, low income people to get to a job, to get to
a doctor's appointment, to get to the grocery store.
And so the impact is magnified, I think, over
many places in Wisconsin. >> All right. Jason Stein,
thank you very much. >> My pleasure. Thank you.
>> Campaigns for governor ahead of the August primary.
Head into high gear with some Democrats in the field
getting a boost after the party's state convention. A
straw poll of party activists put Lieutenant
Governor Sarah Rodriguez on top with state
Representative Francesca Hong in second and state
Senator Kelda Roys coming in third. Here's a glimpse
of candidates speeches at the convention.
>> Does the job I'm asking you for starts with showing
up and then standing up. Here's what I hear out
there. Our neighbors are scared. They are angry
because even if they are doing everything right,
they cannot make ends meet. They work hard and want a
paycheck that covers the rent or mortgage before
it's gone. They need a health insurance premium
that they can afford. So when they get sick, they
have the care that they need. They need public
schools that are fully funded for their kids so
they don't have to go to referendum.
>> We've seen this before in Wisconsin. Scott Walker
ran this con for eight years. Divide and conquer
got the public sector hollow out schools, attack
workers and treat government like the enemy.
When Tony Evers asked me to serve as his top cabinet
official, we inherited a mess. Depleted reserves,
structural deficits, teachers, state employees,
and working people who had been treated like a
punching bag for eight years. So we rolled up our
sleeves and we got to work. We constructed responsible
budgets that returned us to Wisconsin values.
>> I do want to be honest, because as I travel, people
always ask me, David, can a Black candidate become
governor? Hell yeah. If it's a candidate with a
track record of delivering results and winning and not
just talking about them? Yes. If it's a candidate
that has a plan that's built on proven public
policy, not whatever the latest poll says, it's
popular, then yes, the answer is simple, y'all.
Yes. And I am that candidate. I've built a
strong coalition in the state's largest county
while earning support from our rural, suburban urban
communities alike. >> I am running for
governor to raise wages, lower costs, deliver great
public schools, and protect our freedoms from this
authoritarian regime. We will lower the cost of the
biggest ticket items, from housing to health care,
child care to utilities. I don't just have bullet
points, I have bills. I don't just have social
posts, I have plans. And we know this is possible
because we've done it before, right? As the
executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin, I
helped pass the first pro-choice law in 30 years
through an anti-choice Republican Assembly.
>> We have been failed by the status quo for far too
long. And it's not just enough to be anti-Trump.
It's not enough to just be a Democrat. If you're going
to cave to corporate interests, we need a
governor who rejects the Washington way of rampant
corruption and corporate running for governor to do
things the Wisconsin way. That means taxing the rich.
That means freezing the rates. That means keeping
our community safe. And in the AI schemes that rig the
system, fully funding our public schools, passing
universal child care, and delivering health care to
every single person in this state, and standing up to
those monopolies that continue to bankrupt our
family farms and raise our utility bills. I am asking
for your support in August, and I'm asking you to
organize with me all the way through November to
take back with me. >> I am running on a
platform of permanent affordability, not as a
slogan. Not as a slogan, but as a practice. I am the
only candidate in this race who has called for a
moratorium on the construction of AI data
centers. I will not meekly accept the sellout of
Wisconsin to millionaires, billionaires and big tech.
I am the only candidate in this race with a plan for
free childcare. I am the only candidate in this race
who has even considered what AI will do, what it
means for our workers and our civil rights.
>> The first thing I had to do as Secretary of Economic
Development was clean up Foxconn. No problem. I had
three children under the age of two. I know how to
clean up a mess. So I cleaned up Donald Trump and
Scott Walker's mess and saved the state and
Wisconsinites billions of dollars. And then Covid hit.
Covid hit. And let me tell you, that's not a great
time to be in charge of the state's economy. But we
rolled up our sleeves and we got to work.
>> On the Republican side, current seventh
congressional U.S. representative Tom Tiffany
got his party's endorsement in his run for governor at
their convention. >> We're going to take a
shovel to waste and fraud. We're going to root out
corruption. And we're going to bring common sense back
to Madison. Because I refuse to accept failure. I
refuse to accept decline, and I refuse to see the
state of Wisconsin fall behind.
>> Republican Andy Manske is also running. In other
news, the Ho-Chunk nation will receive 165 acres of
their ancestral homelands in a land transfer. The
effort was funded by the Dane County Conservation
Fund in collaboration with the county's Land and Water
Department. Here and now, reporter Erika Ayisi went
to the site to hear how the Ho-Chunk will use the
property. This report is in collaboration with Icty,
formerly Indian Country, today.
>> Every plant is a resource, right? They say
everything our Mother Earth gives us. He goes like,
that is a form of medicine. You just have to find out
what it is so you can smell that.
historic preservation officer for the Ho-Chunk
nation, says plants can soothe sores on the body.
>> It allows you to heal a little bit better. So it's
a different form of medicine.
mounds, and waterways in the Lower Mud Lake Natural
Resource Area are a part of 165 acres of property
returned to Ho-Chunk nation from Dane County.
Quackenbush says the land acquisition is an
opportunity for the public to learn.
>> So the milkweed itself, we call it Marquette. You
just during this time of year, these heads over here,
while they're really young, you pick that and it
doesn't hurt the plant at all. Once you gain the
knowledge and use of it there, that's something
that we tend to pass on from generation to
generation. The plants. >> So nearly $6.5 million
from the Dane County Conservation Fund was used
to purchase a private property south of Babcock
County Park, including significant frontage along
Yahara River Lower Mud Lake and Lake Waubesa. Dane
County will place it in a conservation easement in
partnership with Groundswell Conservancy, a
nonprofit environmental organization, to
permanently prohibit development, preserve
public access and protect the land's cultural
significance. >> Ho-Chunk nation will own
and manage the land, steward the land in
perpetuity. >> Quackenbush says. The
Ho-Chunk are the land's original caretakers.
>> We're the only tribe that has the ability to
speak confidently about the. We were the first and
original people from this region right here.
>> When you say ancestral territories, we're Ho-Chunk
always here. >> We have beautiful
stories that talks about how we adapted through time
from living in a place of refuge and moving back into
these first places as that glacier began to recede.
>> He says. Their oral history talks about their
cultural and environmental adaptation. As Ho-Chunk
people moved through the region for thousands of
years. >> That place of refuge
that we referred to, today's society calls
Driftless Area. >> He says. Their
indigenous language mentions red banks of the
past that are still evident in Wisconsin today.
>> We say Moogasuc in our language. It places you
exactly where that location is. These red banks that
are associated with this ancestral place of origin.
>> According to Quackenbush, the Ho-Chunk nation will be
solely responsible for costs including property
taxes and maintenance of the land. With insight from
the conservancy that includes six archeological
sites and 22 ancient burial mounds.
>> There's a mound system that rises right straight
through it that's nothing more than a large mortuary
site. It's like walking across a burial system. For
modern people out there, there's some respect that
needs to be instilled in that.
>> According to archeologists, there's at
recorded archeological sites in the Dunn Township
part of Dane County. But the sites on the 165 acres
donated to Ho-Chunk were lost in a series of
treaties between the Ho-Chunk and the federal
government during the 1800s, long before Wisconsin was
an established state. This began an era of forced
removals for Ho-Chunk, the original caretakers of this
land and its waters. >> By captions in time in
the 1800s, primarily where a lot of land was ceded
because there was forced removals.
>> Jon Greendeer, president of the Ho-Chunk nation,
says the treaties forced the tribe to relocate
across the Midwest, but they returned to Wisconsin.
>> We were able to not only survive in some of those
regions, we were also able to thrive and repopulate.
>> Ho-Chunk became an official nation in 1963,
and today has about 8000 enrolled members. Greendeer
says the land acquisition is about regaining their
cultural footprint on their ancestral homelands.
>> For the Ho-Chunk nation, we never really believed in
land ownership. We believed that the land was there for
us to use as we need it. >> Considering that there's
a conservation easement between Dane County and
Groundswell Conservancy, who is on the title in this
project. >> The Ho-Chunk nation is
going to be entitled to the project, and it's going to
be a part of anything going forward. If there's any
decisions to be made in terms of development in
that area. >> As to the property,
Groundswell Conservancy says the group, along with
Dane County, will do annual visits to the location.
>> To make sure that the conservation values are
being upheld in conjunction with the Ho-Chunk nation.
>> And support Quackenbush in meeting the tribe's
goals to preserve the site. >> What we want is the
protection and enhancement of the environmental
resources. for the public to sit and
engage and learn. >> This property is a
beautiful educational opportunity unfolding
before our eyes. >> In Madison. I'm Eric
Ayisi for Here and Now and ICT.
>> Finally tonight, in honor of the end of slavery
more than 160 years ago, on June 19th, 1865, Governor
Tony Evers raised the Juneteenth flag at the
state Capitol. This marked the seventh straight year
the flag has flown over the dome. Juneteenth was
declared a federal holiday in 2021 and is recognized
and celebrated in 50 states and the District of
Columbia. For more on this and other issues facing
Wisconsin, visit our website at PBS
wisconsin.org and then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight. I'm Frederica
Freyberg. Have a good weekend.
>> Funding for "Here& Now" is provided by the Focus
Fund for Journalism and
friends of PBS Wisconsin.